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2010 Lamborghini Gallardo LP560 4 Spyder Driven

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If you are an extrovert with a spare $225,000 in your bank account, there are very few reasons not to buy yourself a 2010 Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4 Spyder when it goes on sale this summer. Oh, what am I saying? There’s no way you will walk out the door of your friendly local Lamborghini dealership with the keys to a 2010 Gallardo LP560-4 Spyder by writing a check for only the suggested retail price of $224,700. I know this because I just reviewed the options price list, which must look something like the accounting worksheets that the U.S. Office of Management and Budget is poring over these days as it rescues our banking industry. Practically everything on it is expressed in four or five figures. Callisto Shiny Black Coloured Rims? $4460, please. Bi-color interior leather trim is at least $1815, the sport package is $2060, and the matte paint that one of the two Gallardo Spyders I drove today had is a breathtaking $26,600!

If you have the means to even contemplate this sort of purchase, the 2010 Gallardo LP560-4 Spyder is kinda, sorta worth it, though. This ragtop, like the revised Gallardo coupe that debuted last year is all about the soundtrack. The 560-hp, 5.2-liter V-10 engine mounted midships is a screamer, a yeller, a crackling, snapping, heaving, roaring tempest. You adjust the bass, the treble, and the volume via your right foot, on the accelerator; and via your left hand, which hits the downshift paddle to send the revs soaring and the birds scattering. The villagers here on Tenerife, one of the seven Canary Islands, circled their arms in the air and begged for more, more, more. Hit both shift paddles simultaneously to put the e-Gear (itself an outrageous $10,000 option, even though Lamborghini President and CEO Stephan Winkelmann says virtually no one wants a manual anymore) into neutral; as you’re coasting through town, you hit the gas and the raging metallic symphony fills the street, to the delight of kids, construction workers, and pensioners.

Up on the twisty mountain roads leading to La Teide, the volcanic mountain at the center of Tenerife and the highest point in Spain, the standard all-wheel-drive system helps the Gallardo stick as we rise through the coastal fog and burst into a pine forest. The super-accurate steering could use just a touch more feel, but it doesn’t take long to figure out how to place the Gallardo in corners.

Back down near the coast, the autovia gives the Gallardo more room to breathe, and speeds of 140 mph arrive in a glorious rush of wind and sun, always with that V-10’s furious beat as a background noise. Huge carbon ceramic brakes, another breathtaking extra charge of $16,450, provide supreme confidence that you can haul yourself down to legal speeds within seconds.

We’ll have more on the Gallardo Spyder soon. For now, let me contemplate the prospect of life back on the mainland without a 560-hp topless Lamborghini at my disposal.